OYSTERS La Spéciale Ancelin. Nées de la mer. Elevées avec passion.

Starting in the late 19th century, the fifth generation of the Ancelin family is still cultivating oysters in Bourcefranc-le-Chapus. These are oysters from the famous region of Marennes Oléron on the French Atlantic coast, south of La Rochelle. The siblings Alexandre und Aurélie Ancelin now run the farm.

Spéciale Ancelin is a Spéciale de Claire, i.e. a particularly select oyster which requires a lot of work to cultivate; it distinguishes itself from the normal Fine de Claire oyster in its more uniform, rounder shape and its greater depth. The flesh is firmer, has greater volume and offers a remarkable balance between sweet and salty.

The young oysters are placed in the sea in racks to which they can attach themselves. After nine months they are carefully removed and left in roughly woven bags to grow in beds on the beach, where they are exposed to the tides for two years to mature. 

Part of the special treatment required by Spéciale Ancelin oysters is that they are then taken to Utah Beach in Normandy where they enjoy the high quality of the water in special maturing beds along this section of the coast for a further nine months under optimum conditions. The oysters then return to Bourcefranc-le-Chapus and placed for at least another month in claires, which are basins fed by the tides – enabling the development of a high level of phytoplankton for oyster nutrition and, finally, placed in another clarifying basin enriched with oxygen.

At the end of this complex process, i.e. after approximately three and a half years, Spéciale Ancelin oysters are monitored, selected and sorted according to size.

The Marennes Oléron oysters are divided into five groups, whereby N° 1 is the largest and ie N° 5 the smallest. Please visit our site at www.huitres-ancelin.fr  for further details.